When you read articles about the Galapagos Islands and see the stunning wildlife shots, your natural reaction is to think the person who took the photos is a really good photographer. It's also natural to think that baby sea lion or that puffed-up, red-chested frigate bird was the only one they spotted that day. An eagle-eyed guide found the right spot and everyone looked through binoculars and scopes.

We think that because in most of the world, spotting wildlife is very hit and miss. Animals and birds are afraid of humans---and for good reasons. The animals are also spread out to a wider area usually as well, or high up in a jungle canopy, not clustered together on a small island with few trees.

In the Galapagos Islands, there's a bounty of wildlife everywhere. Most of the creatures living there think the camera-toting tourists are just part of the landscape. We are big, but we're not a threat. So about the only creature that tries to get away from you is this one: the Sally Lightfoot Crab.

Sea Lions and Fur Seals

These two common creatures are often the first thing you see because they're lazing around everywhere, including on the docks where your ship will be waiting. Sea lions are abundant, but so are their cousins the fur seals, who often get called sea lions too even though they're not. Once you know how to tell the difference, you'll know what you're looking at. You may get a chance to swim with one or the other on a beach or while snorkeling. In the water they like to play.

Boobies

You'll probably see the famous Blue-footed Boobies and the Red-Footed Boobies as you go from island to island. It's not just their feet that are interesting. When they're laying eggs or their chicks hatch, they're still standing around oblivious as you walk by. Watch your step! If it's mating season or they're building a nest, you might see some odd dancing rituals:

Magnificent Frigate Birds

You can see Frigate Birds all over the place in the Americas, but here they go through the mating and nesting process without caring how close you get. On one visit I counted 28 of them in my line of sight puffing out their red throat pouch. I'm not sure how the females tell them apart, though there are theories that size and a nicer house do matter...

Galapagos Penguins

It's a bit strange seeing penguins in this temperate zone and it's yet another sign of how unique this ecosystem is. The Galapagos Penguins are the only ones living north of the Equator anywhere in the world. You'll often see them sitting on rocks or on a cliff ledge, or if you're lucky you'll see them swimming around near your panga boat, calling out.

Marine Iguanas

These lizards will take you back to the Jurassic Age with their fierce features and protruding spikes that look like weapons. They're really vegetarians though, eating seaweed and sneezing out the salt water. You really have to be careful where you're walking on black lava because they blend right in.

Galapagos Tortoises

In the pirate and plunder days, sailors would capture these turtles and place them on their backs in the hold to provide food over long voyages. Some species died out when humans cultivated land and brought invasive species to these fragile islands. Thankfully there's no native memory in the tortoises and their numbers are on the rise again, so now you can walk among these long-living, impressive creatures in a field. This is one of the animals you can see without going anywhere if you have a serious seasickness problem: they roam around Santa Cruz Island, not far from the Baltra airport.

Fish and Sea Creatures

The Galapagos wildlife is abundant below the water too. If you go snorkeling you will see an impressive array of colorful fish, but you're also likely to see Galapagos sea turtles, small sharks, starfish, and rays. Maybe even an octopus and, in the right place at the right time of year, hammerhead sharks or whale sharks.

Plus Lots of Surprises

These are just the common creatures you are almost sure to see. Also in the mix will be the Waved Albatross, Flightless Cormorant, finches, and countless sea birds that roam the Pacific, like flamingos, osprey, and herons. When we visited Egas Point on Genovese Island on my Haugan Cruises trip, we even saw an owl species that lives on the ground and hunts during the day.

If you ask a local to name the best restaurant in almost any big city, you're liable to get a lot of different answers. In Quito, however, the one often topping the list has been Nuema, run by chef Alejandro Chamorro. You won't find many people in Ecuador's kitchens with the kind of pedigree he has: he worked at Noma in Copenhagen, one of the top-rated restaurants in the world. Alejandro also worked with the renowned Peruvian chef Gaston Acurio at the Astrid y Gaston Restaurant in Lima. Then partner chef (and wife) Piedad Salazar is a talented pastry chef who handles most of the sweet side of the menu.

Nuema now has a new location in the Illa Experience Hotel in Quito, one we haven't gotten a correspondent into yet but we will link to the review from here after we do. This highly anticipated luxury hotel is a welcome addition to the San Marcos neighborhood of the historic center. Since many of Quito's best restaurants are in the newer business district of the city, having a Nuema location here is going to make a lot of visiting foodies happy.

This restaurant is not just noteworthy for its fine food, however. It represents a holistic "back to our roots" approach to Ecuadorian food. The country's cuisine isn't as well-known as Peru's, but it has the same culinary roots of Andes Mountains, thick jungle, and the sea. Green Plantain is the base of almost every local dish, peanut is a seasoning in many dishes, and Amazon products such as paiche (Amazon fish) or garabato yuyo (bud of a fern) come into play on the menu. Nearly all ingredients are from Ecuador and a committed farm-to-table program is in place for land items. For seafood, they work only with small-scale, environmentally responsible fisherman.

The local emphasis is not just what's on the plates though: it's also part of the plates themselves. All the crockery and cutlery was designed only for Nuema by local artisans from the coastal area of Ecuador.

Nuema cuisine uses a "rule of three" for its dishes. It means that every dish only has 3 flavors + 3 ingredients + 3 textures. (Now there's a good challenge for the next Top Chef season!) I can't tell you what will be on the menu when you get there though because that's based on what's fresh and available. Thankfully this country is on the equator, so it has a wide range of ingredients available all year. Ecuador can grow tropical fruit and berries that require cool temperatures. They've got coffee, cacao, potatoes, grains, and things you have probably never tasted, like the tree tomato.

The Galapagos Sea Star from Latin Trails was a fine ship before its recent renovations: in the World Travel Awards it scored as "South America's Leading Boutique Cruise." They took things up a notch recently though and now this vessel from one of the area's most respected companies is ready to take on passengers looking for some extra perks.

Between August and October the 16-person yacht was in dry dock and 70 people went to work on upgrades. The company used this opportunity to change out most of the decorations, but other changes were more structural. Each of the main deck cabins now has a balcony, so you can experience the views and sea air of the Galapagos environment without having to get fully dressed and go outside in the public areas. You can have your morning coffee, looking at the light change over the day's island, while you feel the breeze on your face and hear the seabirds squawking. Out on the open sea, you may even see a whale.

The communal living room also got a revamp, as well as the sun deck and Upper Deck lounge. The sun deck now has two Jacuzzis for lounging, one of them shaded. There's plenty of snorkeling equipment on board and kayaks to use for exploring. The main lounge is loaded with books, videos, and games.

The Advantages of a Small Ship in the Galapagos

As we've written on here before, there are some 130 ships plying the waters of the Galapagos and the ship you pick will have the greatest impact on your trip. After all, the itineraries in this fragile ecosystem are tightly regulated, so once you step off the boat onto land, what you see isn't going to differ a whole lot. You'll spend a lot of time on your Galapagos cruise moving between the islands, sleeping, and eating, however, so it can be worth it to pay more to get the highest level of comfort and service.

As someone who has been on two Galapagos cruises, my main advice is to go with something small and intimate. Sure, the bigger ships may have more physical amenities to share, but size has some serious disadvantages in the Galapagos. You can only head to shore in small groups, so if there are more than two Zodiac boat loads, you'll do a lot of waiting around. Also, the larger ships can't get into some bays to anchor, so you're stuck well off the shore and won't get a close-up morning view.

It's also kind of nice to really get to know your shipmates. With 16 people in 8 cabins, you can really remember everyone's name. The crew can too, so it's a more personal experience than you get on a ship holding several times that number.

In general, you can expect spacious cabins though. On the Galapagos Sea Star, for instance, cabin sizes range from 270 square feet (25 square meters) to 377 square feet (35 meters) in the Star Suite pictured above. That has a large bathroom as well with a double vanity.

Rates on the Sea Star Journey in the Galapagos Islands of Ecuador range from $5,800 to $7,000 per person for a six-day cruise, including activities, local transfers, meals, and non-alcoholic drinks. 10-day tours range from $9,850 to $11,800. Contact your travel agent for a booking or get more information at the company website, where they also have a lot of useful information about the islands.

]]>https://luxurylatinamerica.com/blog/2018/01/04/revamped-galapagos-sea-star-journey-ship-sails-with-more-style/feed/0The Latest Picks for the Top Hotels in South Americahttps://luxurylatinamerica.com/blog/2017/10/24/latest-picks-top-hotels-south-america/
https://luxurylatinamerica.com/blog/2017/10/24/latest-picks-top-hotels-south-america/#respondTue, 24 Oct 2017 23:51:31 +0000http://luxurylatinamerica.com/blog/?p=6670

Want to know which are the most highly regarded luxury hotels and resorts in South America? We've got some rare convergence with the Conde Nast Traveler Readers' Choice Awards---if we just stick with the least influenced region. Their picks match up well with our South America luxury reviews.

I'm no fan of the supposed "readers' polls" put out by the big travel magazines. I know too many people in the industry who have been part of ballot-stuffing programs to believe these polls really reflect what readers think. It's part of the reason most of the scores are so close to perfect (usually 96 to 99 out of 100).

It's also just common sense that very few of the real readers have been to more than a minuscule fraction of the places featured, much less the various hotels in those destinations. I've stayed in five resorts in Los Cabos and I'm guessing that puts me ahead of 98% of CNT's readers. I've stayed in nine resorts in the Riviera Maya and six hotels in Cusco, which would probably give me a gold prize for the most experience. But it's my job. I wouldn't have vacationed at that many places.

I don't vote because the one time I did I gave up after an hour at it. Too much work unless you have a vested interest in who wins. Apparently I'm not alone: the hotel that got the most votes received less than 7,000. That's 0.009% of their readership.

Plus too many results are fishy. A hotel that wasn't even open when the balloting started showed up in a #1 spot in one Mexico category and the #1 overall pick for the USA was barely open for a year. There were 12 like that who probably got more votes than they had guests. The #4 overall pick for the USA hotel is in Carey, NC. Wait, where?

Not one of the top-10 hotels in the U.S. last year got onto this year's top-10 list. Did they all go downhill together all of a sudden? That seems highly unlikely.

Fortunately, South America is rather immune from the ballot-stuffing irregularities because most of the properties there don't use a big PR or marketing firm in the USA. So there's nobody to "vote early and often" with perfect scores for them---or their competitors. So here are their picks and links to our reviews.

The Top Hotels in South America

CNT listed 25 hotels in South America, with scores ranging from 84.91 (Belmond Sanctuary Lodge) to 98.81 for the #1 listing below. There's only one on the list we haven't featured, but here are the standouts this year. Follow the links for a detailed review.

We've talked before about the good reasons to hang around for a while in Quito, Ecuador. For the first time in a few years, there's a new luxury property opening up this month to talk about too: Illa Experience Hotel. There's a connection to the well-respected tour company Latin Trails, so we know it's going to be well-run from the start.

It's located in the historic center of one of the original UNESCO World Heritage cities, in the San Marcos neighborhood. This has long been a tight-knit neighborhood of creative types, so it's an area with a lot of vitality. Some of the buildings go back 400 years and it's a five-minute walk to the main plaza from here.

Parts of the Illa Hotel building date back to 1700, but the interior went through renovations in the 20th century that did away with many of the historic elements. Since some of it needed a complete revamp anyway, the hotel is a mix of modern and historic, with some parts preserved or restored, others replaced with current materials. Of course that means all the modern plumbing and wiring modern luxury hotel guests expect will be in place.

The top room choice is the Panecillo Suite, which has a direct view of its namesake Panacillo “Virgin of Quito” statue that tops the main hill near the center. The bedroom and living room are sumptuous, but we really like this bathroom:

Some other rooms share this view, but everyone can get it from the rooftop bar up top. This is just an architectural rendering, but it gives you a good sense of this magical spot:

The Junin Master Suite is also quite plus, with an equally impressive bathroom that has a free-standing tub. Going by what we've seen so far, rooms here will be on par with the other high-end properties in town such as Casa Gangotena and Plaza Grande. Each room will have L'Occitane toiletries, fine linens, safe, minibar, robes, slippers, complimentary WiFi, and turndown service.

A full-service restaurant is on site, along with a spa offering massage treatments and a wine cellar with a table for six.

Illa Hotel in Quito is taking bookings now for October of 2017 onward. We'll run a detailed review once we get someone back into Quito who can check the property out in person and get original photos.